A Father's Love: Where Is God in the Storms of Life

By James M. Sienkiewicz

Have you ever wondered where God was when things seem to be going wrong in your life? Maybe you have even asked why. In A Fathers Love, author James Sienkiewicz takes you on a journey seeking the answers to those questions as the storms of life hit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490831909

James M. Sienkiewicz

James M. Sienkiewicz has been the pastor at Cherry Street Bible Church in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, for seven years. He has worked with youth for over ten years. He received his degree in pastoral ministry from Master’s International School of Divinity. James has been married for over ten years and has three children. His oldest son, Noah, was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy when he was just a few months old. Duchenne is a fatal disease that at this time has no cure.

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Copyright © 2014 James M. Sienkiewicz .

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Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-3191-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-3192-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-3190-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014905553

WestBow Press rev. date: 04/11/2014

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Preface

Chapter 1 Our Story

Chapter 2 Noah’s Story

Chapter 3 The Storm Hits

Chapter 4 Where Is The Father?

Chapter 5 Who Is The Father?

Chapter 6 The 64 Million Dollar Question

Chapter 7 A Father Who Knows

Chapter 8 Riding Out The Storm

Chapter 9 The Bunker Of Faith

Chapter 10 What Is On The Horizon?

Chapter 11 Where Is The Father?

DEDICATION

To Noah, you are an answer to prayer. Your strength is amazing and your imagination is enormous. You teach me how to learn and love. I am so grateful that I get to call you my son and my friend. I love you buddy more then you know and I always will!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Jesus, I thank you for your grace and forgiveness. Why you have shown and given them to me is beyond the grasp of my mind. I thank you for all things.

To my amazing wife Amy, if it were not for you following the leading of Jesus in your life I would not know who He is. I love you with all that I am. Thanks for putting up with me.

Jessica DeAngelo. Thank you for you help with this whole book. I thank you for your time, your energy, and insights.

PREFACE

As a teenager and a young man I always struggled with the question why, why did God allow some things to happen and not allow other things to happen? Throughout my teenage years and early on in my marriage I had some things shape me and cause me to look at these questions. To be honest with you it was more of a wrestling match than just a mere looking at these questions. When I became a pastor the so-called light bulb did not just go off and I wasn’t able to answer these questions. It would have been nice if it did though. But yet I was asked these questions time and time again.

From people that were thinking about ending their lives, to those that tried, to those just thinking why work was not going the way they thought it should. Throw in there, world hunger, war, an economic collapse and a boatload of other issues that brought that question to the forefront of people’s minds and lives. While all this was going on, my wife and I were learning that our son Noah had a 100% fatal disease. No cure, no treatment. Now the question was not just professional but personal. Why would God allow my wife and I to have a son with something that will kill him? We found out that our son, Noah, has a form of muscular dystrophy when he was 9 months old. Over the next three years I fought with the questions of where is God at and why is this taking place. I fought with God on some things; to be honest with you it was a lot of things. But in the end He taught me things that, to be honest with you, I would not have learned if it was not for this storm in my life.

When my son was about three I remember sitting in my living room watching T.V. and for some reason I just felt like I needed to write all of this down, our thoughts, our struggles, everything that was taking place. I never had thought about writing a book before. I have never been good with anything like that. I mentioned it to my wife and she thought it would be a good idea, which was a shock to me. I thought she would have laughed and said no way, but she didn’t. I on the other hand was still not sold on the idea. There is a good amount of fear in writing a book, especially for the first time.

As I thought about it for the next few weeks, the feeling never left and so I started to get my thoughts together about a book, a book dealing with the questions of why and where is God at when the ‘storms’ of life come. A book I never thought I would write. It took me a little over two years to put the book together and write it all out. At times it was painful, at times it was joyful but in the end it was good and healthy for me. I pray that it is the same for you. You see the reason I wrote this book is because I now believe that my son, Noah, and what he has is part of the story that God has written for my family and me. It is a story that He has given to us, to me to share with you. It is a message from a husband and father that loves his wife, loves his kids, that loves God and that wants you to realize the things that God has taught me through my storm.

Why you might ask? So that you can learn, grow and allow God to answer the questions of why in your life. A Father’s Love; Where is God at in the Storms of Life comes not from a pastor, but from a mere man struggling at times in the storm. But it also comes from a man that in the midst of the storm knows where the Father is. Throughout this book I am going to have you think about things and to be up front about it, you may find it painful to relive those events or to reopen those wounds. But it is in the pain, the hurt and the confusion that if we handle them right we find the Father even more. We may even find the answer to why. In this book I am going to share with you the story of my wife and I and then the story of what took place with Noah and explain to you what Noah has. I ask that you stay with me through these first few chapters. For knowing the past and how God worked there enables us to see, and to know where He is at in our present.

We are also going to take a look at a few of the things that I have learned about God through this time of my life, things like where is God the Father at, and even answering the million dollar question of why does God allow bad things to happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. We will also take a look at a few reasons why this storm is in your life and a few ways to get through the storm. Is this book the answer to all things? No way, that’s Jesus, not me nor is it this book. Am I going to challenge you, yes, am I going to have you think, yes, am I going to say things you may not agree with or like, yes. The reason why is simple, in order for us to grow in anything we do, we must be challenged, in order to grow stronger we need to see our weaknesses and work on them to make them stronger. I don’t know what is, has been or will come into your life that may cause you to ask where God is at or why something is happening or not happening. But I ask you to take a journey with me through the pages of this book to see where He is at and maybe if it is His will to help you find what He is doing in and through your life.

James Sienkiewicz

CHAPTER 1

OUR STORY

It all began on a cool Friday night in the fall of 1998. I had just finished playing a home football game for my high school, the only game we won that year—as a matter of fact, the only game we won in the last two years. I was pretty excited because of our victory. However, what happened next would change the rest of my life.

As I walked around, still in my pads from the game, I saw someone coming toward me, and as I needed glasses and did not have them on at the time, I had no clue who it was. It was my old girlfriend, Amy, coming to congratulate me. Amy was in the band and because of that was at every game we played, so she knew of our past defeats. We had also dated a bit in high school, but things did not work out, so we went our different ways a year before. Nevertheless, here we were in our senior year in high school, talking after a football game. I did not think much of this encounter until the following Monday at school, when our paths crossed once again. She says it was her idea, but I know that it was God’s idea.

That Monday morning, we decided to start dating again, and the rest is history. As I write this, we are coming up on our ninth wedding anniversary and have been together for almost fourteen years. I share this with you because this is where our story begins, and when I say it changed my life, I mean it changed not only my physical life, but also my eternal life as well.

As Amy and I dated in high school, there came a point in our relationship when she wrote me a note. (For those of you that do not know what that is, it is a text message written on paper.) In the note, she told me she could not be with someone who did not believe what she believed. Amy was a Christian, and I was a football player who had a bit of head knowledge when it came to Jesus, nothing more. As I read this note, I thought, What do I do now?

I decided to go to church. I have always told people I was the guy who went to church because his girlfriend went. As I sat in church with Amy for the first time, I struggled to stay awake even though it was a great service. There were many times I never opened my eyes from the time of prayer to the last hymn. Nevertheless, I was there, and so was Jesus, working all the while in me without my ever knowing it.

Months passed. Amy and I were talking on the phone one night, and the next thing I knew, I was accepting Christ as my Lord and Savior as Amy talked to me about Him and about my sin. That night at the football game a few months back was part of God’s plan. He was there. He was working even though I did not know it. I did not see Him. I did not know Him. I did not hear Him. Even so, He was working at that point in time to bring me to Him. As the years passed, I did not do much with my relationship with Christ. I thought, as you may now, that by accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior I had done what needed to be done and could now do what I wanted. Often we think and maybe even are taught similarly.

There is a cool little story in Acts 5:17–42 that talks about the early church as it got started. The story begins with Peter and some of the other apostles preaching Jesus to